Top Line Tips by Lisa Magnuson
97% of sales leaders believe that having a sales leader playbook would be extremely valuable and positively impact the success of their leadership teams. However, only 14% of the respondents had a formal sales leader playbook. (as compared with the majority who expect their sellers to follow a sales playbook)
What do 41 Sales VP’s have to say – quite a lot.
We interviewed top sales leaders from 19 industries to learn more about their most pressing priorities and biggest challenges. Read on to learn what they had to say about sales leader playbooks.
What is a Sales Leader Playbook?
It’s a book of ‘Plays’ for sales leaders – Sales VP’, Directors and Managers. A reference guide mapping out the best practices associated with all the aspects of their challenging jobs.
Sales leaders also told us exactly what they wanted in a sales leader playbook. Most helpful to them would be plays in the areas of sales leadership, sales methodology, sales execution, and sales culture. Examples of high impact plays would include how to:
- Inspire and activate account teams
- Establish big deal sales expectations
- Follow a proven methodology
- Develop competitive blocking strategies
- Install pre-call planning acumen
- Build a big deal sales culture
Sales Leaders report the Impact of having a documented Sales Leader Playbook to be:
The benefits of a Sales Leadership Playbook are far-reaching and include:
- Elevates their game: helps sales leaders rise above the urgent to focus on the important (increases sales leader effectiveness)
- Easy reference for best practices: efficient vehicle to help leaders perform at their best
- Consistency and alignment amongst the sales leadership team: everyone is speaking the same language
- Indispensable onboarding tool for new sales managers
- Practical: codify the details associated with critical sales leader practices
How to start your Sales Leader Playbook?
If you’re a VP of Sales and would like to get started, gather your sales leadership team to discuss and start mapping your table of contents. It’s easy to identify the areas that would benefit from critical thinking and documentation. Consider:
- What are our common approaches? e. forecasting, account strategy
- Which areas could benefit from consistency? e. internal reviews, executive engagement programs
- What processes are less than efficient and need to be re-worked? i.e. sales training, cross-functional collaboration
Once you start the deep dive work of building out your plays, it’s helpful to have an outside expert who can facilitate the process. Examples of sales leader playbooks also sparks new ideas and approaches. To that end, coming Soon: The TOP Sales Leader Playbook: How to Win 5X Deals Repeatedly.
Good luck! Just as a sales playbook pays big dividends, a sales leader playbook has a multiplier effect that really pays off.
What else did we learn from our Sales VP interviews? Find out by downloading our free Infographic at the bottom of our Home Page at www.toplinesales.com.
Executive Sponsors are a MUST
Invest in your executive selling efforts by giving your sellers the book that is guaranteed to enhance their sales performance. The TOP Seller Advantage: Powerful Strategies to Build Long-Term Executive Relationships includes proven strategies to ensure sellers develop long-lasting executive access. Check it out at http://amzn.to/2hdas8J
Comments (4)
Sales Playbook is really a good read, Well i guess for readers because readers are leaders. However, it is not all sales executives that would spend tangible time reading when they are urgent tasks to take care of. Only those that want to invest in knowledge and the information at their disposal. Anyway, to me i consider Sales Playbook a really upgrade in what i already know and what i don’t know. No Sales person is an island and there is always something new to learn that is the reason i believe Sales Playbook will be of a major advantage to it’s readers. When the author of the sales playbook is an expert in the field, there will be advantages and improvements for it’s readers. Why i am saying this is that, even the few words i have read has added a huge impact in my selling career on Sales Playbook.
Evidently, Sales Leader Playbook is an important tool for sales PRO which enables them to be effective. In any business endeavour, good and ethical practice is paramount and having a tool like Sales Leader Playbook that will constantly remind you of such good practices is important.
I was really impressed by the message. Thanks for the good work you guys are doing here!
Sales Playbook is very important and strategic making everyone team have a common goal and value.